The invention relates to a clothing support for a card flat covering.
A known clothing support, which may be belt-shaped, is made of plastics material, there being embedded in a base body at least one reinforcing insert which is also belt-shaped and which is arranged in the vicinity of the back of the support.
In practice, flexible clothings are used in the main for the flats of carding machines. These clothings comprise small hooks which are set into resilient, multi-ply fabric layers and are made of round or oval wire bent into a U shape and provided with a knee, bending when subjected to loading and returning to their original position when no longer loaded. The basis therefor (clothing support) is formed loaded. The basis therefor (clothing support) is formed by a plurality of cotton fabric layers, frequently in combination with rubber layers, in the form of a continuous narrow (51 mm) or wide (as wide as the flat is long) belt, into which there are pushed small double hooks made of round or oval wire, the legs being provided with a knee and the base having a connecting bridge. A knee is necessary so that the hook does not stand up too high on bending back and so that it is possible to operate with small spacings between the clothings. In order to increase the grip of the clothing, the sides of the tips are usually tapered by grinding (lateral grinding). In addition, they are hardened. The density of occupation on the flat is, for example, 240-500 tips per square inch. Inter alia, the clothing support should be dimensionally stable in order to avoid undesirable bulging during operation and, therefore, impairment of the carding nip; it should have sufficient strength to ensure that the clothing wires are anchored when subjected to the carding forces, should have a certain resilience in order to allow yielding and springing back of the clothing wires and should have low resistance to being pierced.
A known clothing support (DE-A-29 21 535) consists of a base body of resilient solid-plastics material, for example of polyvinyl chloride or polyurethane with appropriate plasticisers. Embedded in the base body—in one case close to the upper side and in the other case close to the back of the support—are reinforcing inserts comprising fabric layers, which are also made of plastics material, for example polyester. The clothing wires are anchored in the base body. They are held, on the one hand, by the resilient base body material and, on the other hand, in the mesh interstices of the fabrics. The base body consists entirely of a resilient plastics material. The resilience is necessary so that the clothing wires can oscillate inside and outside the base body. On the other hand, the resilience impairs the firm anchoring of the clothing wires, so that two reinforcing fabrics are necessary in the base body, in the mesh interstices of which fabrics the clothing wires are held. It is disadvantageous that, for the purpose of anchoring, a reinforcing fabric is also arranged in the vicinity of the upper side of the support, which considerably impairs the oscillations of the clothing wires inside the base body in the central region and in the vicinity of the upper side of the support and outside the support. The clothing wires can even buckle, which leads to disruptions in production.